An Impossible Task
by thetimeladyswan
Summary: As the walls of the universe collapse, putting everyone and everything in danger, they best of the best are drawn together. But how? And for what?  More fandoms involved than mentioned. Full list inside .
1. Part I

_Title: _An Impossible Task (debating change. I'd be ever so grateful of ideas)

_Summary: _As the walls between the universes collapse, leaving everyone and everything in danger, the best of the best are drawn together. But how? And for what?

_Warning: _Randomness, a hell of a lot of fandoms, and spoilers for each one

_Rating:_ T

_Fandoms (may change): _Harry Potter

Doctor Who

Sherlock

His Dark Materials

Pushing Daisies

The Hunger Games (possibly)

Torchwood

The Sarah-Jane Adventures

Merlin (possibly)

* * *

><p>I'd like to apologise, in advance, for wherever this story will end up, and what will happen. I've only seen about half of series one of Merlin, a couple from series two and the last two episodes of series four, so I'm not sure if I'll include it. As for the Hunger Games, I'm not sure how I can work it in. I'm also sorry if characters are OOC in this, especially Sherlock. I suck at writing Sherlock. Another thing to apologise for; I can't seem to split this into chapters, so, Hunger Games-style, it's in parts. So here's part 1.<p>

_Disclaimer: _Rights to BBC, J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, etc.

* * *

><p><em>Part I<em>

* * *

><p>"Harry?"<p>

Hermione, Ginny and Ron were all looking at him concernedly. The four of them were sitting by the black lake, staying on after the rest of the volunteers had left. The castle was looking much better now; the repairs had almost been finished. It would be reopened in time for September the 1st, as usual, as if nothing had happened.

Of course that was not the case.

The summer after the war had been a painful one. The victory against Voldemort and the Death Eaters was dampened somewhat significantly by the amount of deaths and injuries. The dead lay between countless mounds of fresh earth, and a memorial stone, carved from white marble, lay on the vast front lawn of the almost-rebuilt Hogwarts. The survivors mourned, trying to carry on.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked. She then sighed. "No, don't answer that."

"It wasn't your fault. Any of it."

"How do you know? Fred—"

"You can't do anything about it!" Ginny cut him off. "He died laughing; that's how he would've wanted to go. Stop beating yourself up over it."

"There's so many memories here," Hermione murmured, after a lengthy silence. "Happy memories. Focus on that instead."

There was a crackle of electricity and a brief flash of light. Four heads turned. A young blonde woman had appeared out of nowhere and was standing on the grass a way away from the four onlookers, but it did not seem to be apparition – it did not cause such an environmental reaction.

"That works!" she exclaimed in surprise to herself, examining a device attached to her wrist, and deciding that it was unharmed and fully-functioning, she raised her head to investigate her surroundings.

"Hello!" she grinned, catching sight of them. "I'm Jenny. Pleased to meet you."

"Hi Jenny," said Harry, frowning slightly. "How did you … get here?"

"Someone gave me this," she explained, tapping the device on her wrist. "I didn't know what it does, but obviously it can transport me to different places …"

"I'm Hermione Granger," Hermione introduced, climbing to her feet. "This is Harry, Ron and Ginny. Might I ask where you've come from?"

"I was just travelling," said Jenny. "Then I met this man, he gave me this. I don't know why. But originally, I'm from a planet called Messaline."

"So … you're an alien?" Ron asked, eyebrows creasing together.

"Yes. I'm a time-lord."

"Wouldn't that be time-lady?"

"Maybe, I'd never given it much thought. Where am I now?"

"Earth, 1997."

"Cool!" Jenny exclaimed, grinning so that she looked like a young girl. "Do you mind if I stay with you guys, until I can find an alien invasion or how to use this thing properly?"

"Of course."

* * *

><p>"Doctor!" shouted Amy, sounding extremely angry, as the TARDIS leaned dangerously to one side. "What the <em>hell <em>is going on?"

"Some sort of signal!" the Doctor called back happily. "I'm sorry! I can't do anything!"

"The stabilisers might help!" River yelled.

The TARDIS engines grinded to a halt, and everything righted itself. The four of them clambered to their feet, dishevelled but unhurt.

"What was that?" Rory asked shakily.

"I said. Signal," said the Doctor unconcernedly, pulling the scanner towards him. "It's not a distress signal … oh! We're on earth!"

"Which is a surprise, because ...?" Amy quirked an eyebrow, fixing her hair and clothes.

"It's not a surprise, I was just wondering where the signal came from. It doesn't seem anything too dangerous."

River gave a derisive snort.

"Alien invasion?"

"Oh. Yeah, I never thought of that."

"Of course you didn't," said Amy, walking around to peer at the scanner.

"Well why don't we go out there and find out what it is?"

"Good idea! Ger—"

"Don't. Just don't."

The doors were opened out, to reveal a vast expanse of apparently deserted beach. Amy stepped out first, drawing her jacket tighter around herself.

"Nice beach."

"This isn't earth!" the Doctor exclaimed suddenly.

"You just said it was," Rory muttered. "The _TARDIS_ said it was."

River sniffed deeply. "It's a parallel universe. Do you know it?"

The Doctor nodded. "Darlig Ulv Stranden."

"Bad Wolf Bay," said a voice.

The four of them walked around to the other side of the police box. Two figures were standing there; a tall man with unruly brown hair, and a shorter blonde woman.

"The signal worked then," she remarked.

"Hello Doctor," the male said. "River."

The Doctor inclined his head. "Doctor."

"Have we met?" River frowned.

"Who are they?" Amy asked. "How do they know you? Why did you call him Doctor?"

"Biological meta-crisis," said the male stranger simply.

"Which means …?"

"In my last regeneration, I was travelling with a woman called Donna Noble –"

"You might want to mention your hand was cut off on Christmas day, first," the woman interrupted.

"Right yeah. I was able to grow a new one, because I'd just regenerated. I found it again, with a little help from a friend. Anyway, back to Donna. I was shot by a Dalek, and I regenerated enough to heal the wound, and then siphoned the rest of the energy into the hand. Then Donna touched it, and …"

He indicated the stranger, who smiled. "And you can call me John Smith. Everyone does. Saves confusion."

"Oh, I forgot. Amy, Rory, River, this is Rose. Rose, meet the Ponds."

"The Ponds?" Rose quirked an eyebrow. "Are you telling me that your name is River Pond?"

"Melody Pond," River corrected. "River Song. These are my parents."

"It's a strange life," Amy rolled her eyes. "She'd be three years old."

"What happened?" John asked, intrigued as to what had led her to the library.

"I was kidnapped," River shrugged.

"What happened to you?" Rose asked quietly, after a brief silence, eyes on the Doctor.

"Radiation," he said. "Christmas Day."

Comprehension dawned on John's face.

"You felt it?"

He nodded.

"How's your TARDIS coming along?" the Doctor asked suddenly.

"See for yourself," Rose said, tossing a yellow disc to him.

He caught it. "These are working again?"

"That's how we knew we needed you," John said. "The walls between the universes are breaking down. Again."

"I just hope it's not Daleks."

Amy thought she understood a little more his reaction against the Daleks all that time ago.

"What am I meant to do with this?" the Doctor asked, turning the device over in his hands.

"We've modified them a bit," John said. "Co-ordinates are set for back home. If you were able to get through without a problem –" Amy snorted "– you'll be able to travel in this universe."

"All right then."

The six of them entered the TARDIS, Rose gasping quietly in surprise.

"Yes, she looks different," said the Doctor, moving over to the console and attaching the dimension-cannon to the controls. "Changed just after I regenerated."

"How come it didn't change when you regenerated last time?" Rose asked curiously.

"Radiation's … a messy regeneration. I crashed."

"In my back garden," said Amy. "When I was just a kid. Spent the next twelve years of my life with an 'imaginary friend', who came back on my wedding night. Not exactly the most normal way to meet your future best friend and—"

"Amy!"

"– son in law," Amy continued, smirking. The Doctor blushed. Rose laughed. He turned his eyes on her instead. She was actually smiling, naturally.

"What?" she asked, frowning at him. "I'm happy for you!"

"Really?"

"Yes," she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You've moved on, and so have I. Though I suppose a human version of you isn't really moving on …"

The Doctor busied himself in flipping switches and pressing buttons, eyes averted from the others.

"I thought you said that it _'wasn't like that'_ with any of your companions," said Amy, quirking an eyebrow. "In fact, I'm sure you said it."

"It wasn't," he said.

"So there's just an exception for blondes?"

"River isn't a companion!"

Amy rolled her eyes. "She's travelled with you. If you'd look over there you'd see that she's travelling with you _now._"

"Saved your life a few times, too."

"After you'd killed him," Rory muttered.

Rose laughed again, as the TARDIS landed. "Ok, if there was an award for most dysfunctional family it would have to go to you." She walked towards the doors. "And I've got a four year old brother and a father who was dead for years. Anyway," she opened the doors, "welcome to our humble abode."

She stepped out, and the others followed. They had landed in a garage, almost empty despite the ample amount of space there was. A UNIT-style jeep was parked next to the door, and something that closely resembled the make-shift TARDIS the Doctor and Idris had constructed had been positioned in the corner. It was definitely a TARDIS – the almost breathing-type sound was distinctively similar, along with the orangey glow. It was a shell-less TARDIS, just a console, with two steps leading up to it.

"It's coming on well," John said. "For three years. Haven't tried to use it yet, but …"

"Donna was right, then."

He nodded.

"Do you lot want to come in?" Rose asked, walking towards a door that obviously led to the adjoining house and fishing in her pockets for keys. "I'll make tea, we can try and figure out what's going on."

Her offer was accepted, and she opened the door. Before anyone could enter, a Labrador came bounding out, heading straight for John. He scratched its ears.

Rose watched fondly for a few seconds, before walking into her house.

The kitchen was rather small, but there was space for them all around the table. It had started to rain by the time the kettle had boiled, raindrops streaming down the window, from which the road and houses opposite could be seen.

"Mum and Dad and Tony are just up the road," Rose said. "Torchwood isn't that far away. They're trying to work out what's going on. They'd be delighted to see you lot."

"What happened last time?" Amy asked interestedly.

"It all circulated around me," John said. "There was a Dalek who could tell the future, so he got Donna to the right place at the right time, to meet the Doctor. Then, when she touched the hand, she created me. And I destroyed all the Daleks. But if all that hadn't happened, he'd have died. Just after you left him, Rose."

"I know," she said, thinking of that parallel world. "I remember."

"Heard from Martha?" John asked. The Doctor shook his head.

"You should go and visit her, Doctor," said Rose. "It'd do her good. And you."

"She wouldn't recognise me."

"Not at first, but she probably would, eventually."

"Hmm …"

They drank their tea, discussing their adventures of old and what the Doctor had been doing since he'd last been to the parallel world.

"In a nutshell, regenerated, found new companions, got married and faked his own death," River had said.

Now they were all packed into the jeep, reluctant though the Doctor was to leave the TARDIS behind, on their way to UNIT.

"How come you never told me?" Amy asked, shooting the Doctor a curious look. "I would've liked to hear about them. All of them. Tell me about Martha and Donna."

"They were magnificent!" said John, from the front, where he and Rose were sitting.

"Both from London," the Doctor added. "I met Donna first, just after I'd left here … she ended up on the TARDIS, but she didn't want to travel with me. Then I met Martha. The hospital she was working at was transported to the moon by the Judoon. They were looking for an alien – not me. Anyway, when we came back to Earth, she came with me. She helped me a lot, though I don't suppose I did her any favours by mentioning Rose all the time. In the end, her family was kidnapped by the Master – that's another time-lord. But he's dead now – and she left me. Then I met Donna again, and she travelled with me … and you heard what happened, in the end. Then I regenerated, and I met you."

"And you said you'd be back in five minutes, but it ended up being twelve years," Amy smiled weakly.

"Ha!" said Rose. "He said I'd been gone for a day when he brought me back home the first time, but I'd been gone a year."

"It was an easy mistake to make!"

"No it wasn't!"

"We're here!"

There was no rain where they had ended up. They jumped out of the jeep, walking toward the Torchwood building. They were stopped at the door by two guards, though they were, as far as anyone could tell, unarmed. Rose pulled out an ID.

"Miss Tyler," one of the guards nodded. John held out his own ID. "Mr Smith."

"This is the Doctor and three of his companions," Rose said. "VIPs."

The guards nodded, standing back, granting them access.

"Seems more like UNIT to me. Though I suppose Torchwood three is completely different to this."

"It is," Rose said.

"How do you know?"

"When you lot were doing your subwave network thing, I could see you. Wherever Jack, Gwen and Ianto were standing wasn't Torchwood. At least not as we know it."

"Who's that?" River asked suddenly.

A rather timid-looking man of medium build and closely-cropped brown hair was walking purposely towards them, clipboard in hand.

"Mr Smith, Miss Tyler," he said. "A … matter has arisen."

"What?" Rose asked. "Why are you coming to us; where's Dad?"

"Your father hasn't come in yet today," the man said. "We have apprehended an intruder."

"Oh?" John raised his thick eyebrows.

"Yes. He says his name is Mycroft Holmes …"

Amy frowned suddenly.

"But?" John prompted.

"He doesn't look anything like the photograph on his ID, and … there's no such person as Mycroft Holmes on our record."

"How did he get in, then?" Rose asked.

"It's an access-all areas pass," the man explained.

"For a man that doesn't exist."

The man nodded. "He's in the cell in the basement, if you want to question him."

"We'll do that," said John. "Thank you, Carter."

He walked away with his clipboard.

"What's wrong, Amy?" the Doctor asked.

"I think I've heard of Mycroft Holmes, that's all," she said, shaking her head slightly.

"Well you've got a lot packed into that head," said River reasonably. "Must be hard to figure out what's real and what's not."

Amy nodded slowly as they stepped into a lift. Rose pressed the button which took them down to the bottom floor – from there they'd have to take the stairs.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Rory asked concernedly. Amy smiled at him, assuring him that she was.

"D'you think he's from another universe?" River asked.

"Seems the only plausible explanation," John responded.

The basement was also guarded. It was a small, unremarkable room, filled with packed boxes, and a 'cell' at the back of it. Their intruder was locked up, sitting on one of two beds. He was a tall, lithe man, with black curls and a suit, looking extremely bored and not at all frightened. Rose and John flashed their IDs at the guards, explaining that the other four were 'VIPs', and they ventured into the cell, sitting down on the bed opposite the intruder, who looked around at them.

"You've come to interrogate me." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, we have," said Rose. "My name's Rose Tyler; my father's head of this Torchwood institute."

"What's your name?" Amy asked, in what seemed an attempt to be kindly.

"Sherlock Holmes."

"And Mycroft is …?"

"My brother, who 'occupies a minor position in the British government'," he snorted.

"We don't have a Mycroft Holmes on record," said John, leaning forward slightly. "So tell me Sherlock, what happened to you?"

"I don't know," he replied, turning his eyes on each of them in turn. He seemed to be telling the truth. "I was in bed, asleep, and then I was in the middle of London. Well, it says it's London. It looks different … I know every street. This isn't familiar. So I came here trying to find some answers. Thought Mycroft's access-all-areas pass would be my best bet."

The Doctor surveyed him interestedly, before pulling out his screwdriver and scanning Sherlock, who eyed him.

"Transmat," he concluded, putting the screwdriver back in his pocket with an odd smile.

Rose's eyebrows shot up. "A transmat can't transport someone from one universe to another."

"A powerful one then," John murmured.

"Problem is, who'd be behind a transmat this powerful?" River asked, frowning slightly.

"I just hope it's not Daleks again," Rose shuddered.

"So," Sherlock interrupted their conversation, which his lack of understanding of seemed to be irritating him. "What are you going to do with me?"

"We'll let you come with us, I suppose," said John. "Provided you help us."

Sherlock nodded, offering his hand. John shook it.

"Right!" the Doctor jumped up. "Off we go. Oh and Sherlock, I'm the Doctor and this is Amy, Rory, River and John."

Sherlock's eyebrows rose. "Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor," said Amy, in a rather long-suffering tone. "And _please _don't ask him why."

Sherlock turned instead to John. "Your name's John?"

"Yes, why?"

"I've got a friend called John."

"Will he be worrying about you?" Rory asked.

Sherlock shook his head.

"Why not?" River frowned.

"He thinks I'm dead."

Amy rolled her eyes. "You and the Doctor should form an 'I faked my death and lied to my friends' club. Still, he told River and she told us. Have you got a confidant?"

"Yes."

"Will they be worrying about you?"

"Possibly."

"What's their name?" Rose asked curiously.

"Molly Hooper."

"If they're married there's going to be far too much coincidence for my liking," Amy muttered.

Sherlock snorted. "Of course we're not married. She's my friend; she helped me fake my death."

Amy couldn't help notice that his prominent cheekbones flushed slightly. She bit back a smile.

"What are we here for, anyway?" Rory asked, as they left the basement.

"We're investigating this universal collision," said John. "Thought it was time we brought in the expert."

"Who?" the Doctor asked eagerly.

"You, you daft dimbo," Rose rolled her eyes, punching him lightly on the shoulder as she passed him, leading their enlarged group to the lift and pressing the button for the fifth floor.

A woman with long brown hair in a pony-tail and glasses looked up immediately on their arrival.

"Rose! John! Good to see you; we've not made any more progress, thought you could shine some light on it for us. You're more experienced, after all …"

"Guys, this is the Doctor, Amy and Rory Pond, River Song and Sherlock Holmes. Three companions and an intruder."

"I'm not an intruder," Sherlock argued. "I'm a consulting detective; only one in the world. Well … my one."

"There is no 'consulting detective' here at all," said Rose. "So yeah, you're the only one in the world. Well done."

"Show them what we've been doing," said Rose, as John pulled out his glasses, a trait he had inherited from the time-lord part of him. The others crowded around the machines interestedly, peering at the screens of information.

* * *

><p>"Sherlock?" Molly called through to the spare room. There was no answer.<p>

It surprised her that he had not demanded to stay there, and that it had been her who had offered the room to him – a place to keep his head down for however long he had planned.

She felt guilty every time she saw John's face, however. Their unlikely friendship had blossomed from Sherlock's 'death'. John felt that Molly was the only one he could talk to.

"Is that weird?" he'd asked, the first time they'd met for coffee. Molly had quickly assured him that it was not, and their friendship had ensued.

She felt less guilty when she saw that he was sleeping more; his eyes were less rimmed with purple, and she was able to tell Sherlock how he was.

She rapped her knuckles lightly against the door. "Sherlock! You can't stay in bed all day! I made breakfast."

Still no answer. Cautiously, she eased the door open.

There was no one there. The bed was empty, the room silent. The window was shut tightly, but he hardly would've jumped out of it in the first place. She sighed, completely confused, backing out of the room and closing the door.

Worry began to eat at her as she sat down to her lunch alone. She made two cups of coffee. As she was pouring the extra one down the sink, a knock on the door made her jump. The mug smashed in the sink. She hurried to answer the door. Was it possible that Sherlock had sneaked out and forgotten his key?

"Hello Molly," a young man, tall, thin with floppy brown hair, dressed in a tweed suit and a bowtie stood there with a wide smile. A stranger who should most definitely not know her name.

"… hello?" she said uncertainly.

He laughed. "I'm the Doctor. I'm here to help. Pleased to meet you."

"How do you know my name?" she asked, as he shook her hand rather too enthusiastically for her liking.

"I believe you've lost a friend of yours."

"Sherlock? Is he ok?"

The Doctor smiled. "Yes. He's fine. He was just transported to a different universe. Lucky we were there, really. Would you care to come with us, Molly?"

"What?" she asked, blinking.

"Come with us?" he repeated.

"Oh … ok."

He grinned. "This way."

She stepped outside, locked her flat door and followed this strange man, wondering why on earth she trusted him.

* * *

><p>Rose glanced over her shoulder. Sherlock had long since lost interest in the readings and predictions the monitors showed, while she herself could not make out what some of them meant. He was standing by the window, staring at the bustling streets below. To those people, Torchwood was merely a secret base, guarded heavily and essential to avoid. They didn't know about the extra-terrestrial involvement, which, of course, was for the best.<p>

"Is there a St Bartholomew's Hospital in this London?" Sherlock asked, not taking his eyes off the street.

"There's no point in looking for her," said Rose. "She won't know you. You don't exist in this universe, and if you do, you're not the same."

Sherlock turned to look at her, a scowl crossing his face. She almost laughed. "Who mentioned anyone?"

"You told us about Molly, remember?" said Amy, without looking up, but Rose could tell she was smirking.

"I didn't say she worked at St Bart's."

Rose's eyes met Amy's, and they both promptly burst out laughing.

"We're trying to work here if you don't mind," Sandra said, quite indignantly, also looking up from the screen, her glasses hanging around her neck.

"Lighten up," said Rose. "And my father employs you, don't forget. So, what've we got? Seems to be all written in code, to me. How many universes are affected?"

"Four, as far as we can tell," said Tommy, in his all-business tone. "Including this one."

"And how long 'til it spreads to the others?" John asked, eyes still fixated on the monitor.

"A day or two? We can't be sure. It's definitely gathered momentum since it started."

"Ok, thanks."

"So what now?"

"I think we should go back to the TARDIS," said River. "We're not much good to anyone here."

"She does always take me where I need to be," the Doctor mused. "Ok; let's go."

They bid farewell to the team, piling into another lift. Rose made a quick detour to the head office, to check if her father had arrived in for work yet, assuring the others she'd use her dimension cannon to go to the house – even pulling the device out of her pocket to show them – and pointing out that the jeep was not designed to hold seven people comfortably.

And so John and River climbed into the front of the vehicle, while the Doctor, Sherlock, Amy and Rory clambered into the back.

"How is it possible for the walls between the universes to collapse?" Sherlock asked interestedly.

"The Daleks – that's a race of aliens – managed to create a 'reality bomb', as they called it. It destroyed every form of matter. The stars started to disappear, so did the walls between the universes. Everything would've been destroyed if it hadn't been for Donna and John."

"Meta-crisis, you said," Amy murmured. The Doctor nodded.

Rose was waiting for them by the TARDIS when they reached the garage.

"Anything interesting?"

She shook her head. "But Dad's still not gone into work. Maybe he's sick … or Toby is …"

She shrugged, slotting the treasured golden key that she'd kept all those years into the lock of the blue box. The door opened with a creak less discernable than it had been in her time. The party of seven stepped in.

"How do you fit everything in?" Sherlock asked.

"Chameleon circuit," said John fondly, as Rose flopped onto one of the console seats, sending it bouncing slightly on its spring. "Disguised herself as a police box."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows "'Herself'?"

Several incredulous looks were shot his way.

"Can't you feel it?" Rory asked, frowning at him.

"Hear it? Listen."

All fell silent, apart from the thrumming of the TARDIS engines, which sounded far too much like breathing to be ignored.

"We met her once when she was forced into a human body," said Amy.

"She was … a little odd."

"Crazy," Amy corrected.

"Like me!" the Doctor grinned, straightening his bowtie proudly. He turned to murmur something to the console. A lever flipped over of its own accord, sending the TARDIS into flight.

"And if we end up in danger? Again?"

"We'll figure something out!"

The impossible blue box landed with a light thud. The Doctor pulled the scanner towards him, peering at the information it showed. The others crowded in around him, trying to catch a glimpse of the screen over his shoulder.

"Earth," River read off. "Early twenty-first century. Nothing dangerous as far as I can tell."

The Doctor brought up to the screen what was going on outside. It did not seem very remarkable; a block of flats, people passing by occasionally, none of the questioning the TARDIS's sudden appearance. However, Sherlock's expression changed completely.

"What?" Amy asked, looking sideways at him.

"This is where Molly lives."

"Oh excellent!" the Doctor grinned. "What number?"

"18A, but …"

"I'll just pop in and see if she'd like to come with us; won't be long." Far too excited over just this, he practically bounced down the steps and left the TARDIS joyfully, Sherlock's complaints never being voiced.

The lift the Doctor took was remarkably pristine for one in a block of flats several stories high. On Earth, they were vandalised more often than not; he knew that. He reached the doorway – its brown paint peeling slightly around the doorknob – he was looking for and knocked on it. It was opened almost immediately by a rather short young woman, with her light-brown hair tied into a pony-tail. She looked immensely worried, possibly about the sudden disappearance of her friend.

"Hello Molly," he smiled at her.

"… hello?" she greeted hesitantly.

* * *

><p>Sherlock drummed his fingers lightly against the raised glass surface of the floor from where he sat on the topmost of the two steps leading up to it. He had been doing so for ten minutes, Rose observed. It was driving her mad, but she did not voice this, know it would come out as an irritated, "shut up!". Nobody else said anything either. It was clear that he was anxious – he'd probably wanted to go with the Doctor to his friend's flat.<p>

It was River who snapped, though she did not utter a word. She simply left the console room, heels clicking against the glass in almost the same rhythm as Sherlock's drumming. She seemed to know the TARDIS well – of course she did, she was the Doctor's wife. Rose was still getting used to the idea. The Doctor. Married.

She had meant it; she was happy for them. She'd seen how hard it was to find happiness in the stricken universe, especially for the Doctor, who'd lived for so long; lost so much. She wanted him to be happy; she still cared about him, even though she had John.

River couldn't be human. The thought made sense as soon as it crossed Rose's brain. She remembered the Doctor telling her, _"You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. That's the curse of the Time lords." _She knew that he would do everything he could not to fall in love with a human, because of the pain.

She decided to consult John.

"Do you think she's human?"

"Hmm?" he asked.

"River. Do you think she's human? I mean, Amy and Rory are human … but …"

"No, I don't think she's human," he said. "At least not fully. Though it won't make any difference."

"How could it not make any difference?"

"She dies, Rose," John sighed. "I've seen it happen. When I – well, he – was travelling with Donna. She gave her life to save four thousand and twenty-two people, trapped on a computer hard-drive. I wanted to do it, but she knocked me out and handcuffed me so I couldn't. she said,_ 'It would burn out both your hearts and don't think you'd regenerate.' _And, _'You don't have a chance and neither do I.'_ That's when I thought she must have been like me; two hearts."

"But Amy and Rory are human," Rose said finally, digesting the horror that the Doctor would never escape pain. And to have River's impending death hanging over him all the time that they were together … Rose shut her eyes tightly.

John slid his hand into hers. Her fingers tightened around his own gratefully.

"I don't know how that could've happened," he murmured, thoughtfully. "Maybe they'd spent a lot of time travelling in the TARDIS – nobody's been travelling in it through their pregnancy before. Maybe it affected River."

"Maybe."

The TARDIS door opened. As if on cue, River reappeared in the console room and Sherlock stood up. Molly (it could hardly be anyone else) stepped in first, the Doctor close behind. She looked around in awe, the common reaction, drinking in the sheer size of the place with the numerous glass staircases leading to unknown rooms and corridors. Her eyes landed on the six assembled on the platform, sitting on standing around the console. She breathed a sigh of relief, stepping tentatively toward Sherlock and hugging him. A look of surprise flashed across her face when he reciprocated. Rose caught sight of Amy's smirk.

"So, Molly Hooper," said the Doctor, walking up to the console and setting the controls. "Welcome to the TARDIS."

She also stepped towards the console, eyes sweeping over the controls. "What's that?" she asked curiously, looking up to meet his eyes.

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

"How do you fit everything in?"

"It's called a chameleon circuit," the Doctor explained. "The TARDIS is designed to blend in, so here it would probably be a normal red phone box. But the circuit's broken, so she's stuck as a police box. Still fits in, though."

"Can't you fix it?" Molly asked the man, whose intelligence she guessed could easily rival Sherlock. He probably wasn't the least bit fond of that.

"Probably, if I tried," the Doctor smiled.

Rose laughed.

"What now?"

"Set the controls to random, I suppose. See where we end up."

"Good idea," River pressed several buttons on the TARDIS console, insisting she was the better flier of the machine before the Doctor could even open his mouth.

* * *

><p>"So, do you have a … family who'll be worrying about you?"<p>

"There's my father," said Jenny, gazing out over the water of the black lake. "But he thinks I'm dead."

"How?" Ron asked, bewildered.

"I was shot, and I think I died, but I woke up after he'd left, perfectly healed. Maybe it's got something to do with my hearts."

"Your hearts?" Ginny raised her eyebrows at the plural.

"Yeah, I've got tw— hang on, can you hear that?"

The four nodded, scrambling to their feet as a blue box appeared on the grass not too far away from them. Jenny's hearts leapt as she recognised it. She'd only seen it briefly after she'd been born, but she knew that it belonged to her father.

The door opened, and a head of floppy brown hair popped out, surveying the surroundings. Catching sight of them, the man hastily withdrew again.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" several voices asked, as he shut the doors and leaned against them, trying to make sense of what he'd just seen. It couldn't be her. It just couldn't.

"It _isn't _Daleks, is it?" Rose asked apprehensively.

The Doctor shook his head, swallowing. "It's … it's Jenny."

Of course, the only person this had any affect on was John. He slowly stepped down from the console steps. "What?"

"I've just seen her."

"Who's Jenny?"

"My – our, I suppose – I had his face when it happened, daughter."

"I knew it!" said Amy, her triumph completely out of place. "The way you dodged around that question when I asked you. But," she frowned. "Why are you hiding from her?"

"She's dead," said John, shaking his head in confusion. "I – well you – held her in my arms and watched her die."

"She could've regenerated," said Rose reasonably.

"I wouldn't recognise her. She looks the same now as she's always done."

"Why did you never mention you had a daughter?" Rory asked.

"I only knew her for an hour or so," said the Doctor, sighing heavily. "Donna, Martha and I – the TARDIS took us to Messaline. We ended up in the middle of the war. A progenation machine, I think it was called, took a tissue sample from me and … grew Jenny from it. But she was a soldier, born in battle, programmed to kill. I … didn't accept her. Donna sort of talked me round. Made me listen to her – Jenny's – hearts. She stopped killing people. But then, after I stopped the war, a general tried to shoot me. She … she stepped in front of me, and …" he trailed off. He could almost hear the gunshot reverberating inside his head. She'd reminded him so much of himself, and the children he'd once had, now long-lost in the time-war.

"Go and talk to her," said Molly.

"Both of you," Amy chimed in. "Go on. Family reunion."

The two of them looked at each other, before nodding and leaving the TARDIS.

* * *

><p>Lyra trudged through the snow, her pine-marten dæmon, Pantalaimon, bundled up inside her coat, which was too big for her at any rate. At sixteen, her determination was greater than ever. Her years of loneliness were her fuel to learn the ability she'd lost; to read the alethiometer. Under Dame Hannah's watchful eye, she did learn. She wasn't an expert, but she could read it.<p>

During her studies, she'd stumbled across an old leather book in the library of the Jordan College. She found that it contained legends, at first, and then prophecies. Some of which had actually happened. And so she had read it, and came across something that said the walls between the universes would collapse, and that everyone and everything would be in danger if they did. Lyra's heart leapt, not because of the danger that was certain if this particular foretelling came to pass, but because maybe, possibly, she could see Will again.

She had not allowed herself to hope that this would happen, tried to forget Will, but always found herself sitting on that bench on Midsummer's day. Pantalaimon, for all he tried, could not do much to help her.

It had taken a lot to persuade Dame Hannah, and then the Master of Jordan, to allow her this trip to see King Iorek Byrnison. But she felt that asking him what his opinion of this prophecy was would help her. And so an äeronaut took her as far north as he could, and she walked to rest on her own, her dæmon close to her chest, her supply of food and water, alethiometer, the book and a communication device safe in the bag that was slung over her shoulder. she was to send word for another äeronaut to come for her when she was nearing the point where the last one had left her. She couldn't wait to see Iorek again. He was the only familiar face she could turn to, as Will and Dr Malone were both in a different universe, beyond her reach, and everyone else was dead.

When she reached her destination, the ice bears did not try to stop her. Perhaps they recognised her from when she'd tricked the old king into fighting Iorek and losing. Perhaps they respected her for the part she'd played in the war against the authority.

Either way, she was not stopped as she walked up to Iorek. He looked pleased to see her.

"Lyra, my child," he greeted with a low growl. "Whatever has brought you here?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Lyra said truthfully, and then she smiled, throwing her arms around the bear's neck. He did not protest. "It's good to see you, Iorek."

He inclined his head as she stood back from him. "As it is to see you."

"I found a book, at Jordan. It's about legends and prophecies. Do you believe in prophecies?"

"If they are foretold correctly," said Iorek vaguely. "Why? What is the one of which you intend to ask me about?"

"It says that the walls between the worlds will collapse."

"I see," he growled. "This is affection for the boy?"

Lyra nodded, casting her eyes toward the ground, a dim blush appearing on her cheeks.

"There is one window left open, yes?"

"Yes," she echoed.

"There's always the chance that it could rip," Iorek growled wisely. "And that the walls, as you say, between the worlds could collapse."

"Thank you, Iorek."

She stayed for dinner, and the ice bears even cooked meat especially for her. She thanked them gratefully.

Half-way through the meal, a bear, one of the guards, came lumbering towards them.

"What is it?" Iorek asked.

"The fog … like that of years ago."

The bears abandoned their dinner and ventured outside to asses the situation. The bear was right. Lyra recognised the fog.

"It seems as if your prophecy is coming true, my child."

* * *

><p>Jenny stood where was, staring at the blue box, wondering if she should walk up and hammer on the doors. She wondered who the floppy-haired stranger had been. He seemed vaguely familiar to her, but she couldn't imagine how; she'd never met him before.<p>

The door opened again; the man from before, with the floppy brown hair and tweed suit, followed by someone she _did _recognise; her father.

The sight of him coaxed a smile from her lips, but she was ever wary that he thought she was dead. The steps she took toward the two of them were tentative. When she did reach them, her eyes flickered between the two of them, searching for a reaction.

Instead she found nothing.

"Dad?" she finally asked.

He shook his head, she drew back, her eyes locking on to those of the other man. There was something in his eyes that she found familiar. And an account she'd read while researching her species came to mind; _"He looked like any ordinary man, but his eyes were so impossibly old."_

Apparently seeing comprehension dawn on her face, he held out his arms, just as tentatively as she had walked towards him. She didn't hesitate to hug him, and tightly, burying her face in his tweed-coated shoulder. She didn't care that he looked different. This was her father. She'd found him at last.

She released him, taking a step back, looking between the two of them again, eyes asking for an explanation.

"Human-Time lord meta-crisis," the Doctor said. "Bit of a long story. I lost my hand, in a swordfight, but I'd barely regenerated, so I was able to grow a new one. Jack – you don't know Jack – found it and used it to find me. Called it a 'Doctor detector'. Then I took the hand. Skipping on a bit, I was shot by a Dalek. I regenerated enough to heal the wound, and siphoned the rest of the energy into the hand. Donna – you _do_ know her –"

Jenny nodded in agreement. She remembered Donna. She'd been so kind. About to ask where she was, Jenny was cut off.

"She touched it, and …"

"Ta-da!" the other man grinned, waving the hand that Jenny supposed was the one that had been cut off. "You can call me John, ok?"

"Ok," Jenny echoed, agreeing.

He seemed to sense what was going through her head, for he said, "Look, Jenny. I do have the same memories, and thoughts, most of the time. I remember you. And Martha and Donna and," his eyes darkened slightly, "General Cobb."

Jenny hugged him as well.

"Who are your friends?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron and Ginny Weasley. I've only just met them."

"How did you get here?"

"Well, I stole the space shuttle from Messaline originally. I wanted to travel, like you; I did. I was on earth, and some man gave me this," she took the device from her pocket and held it out. "I didn't know what it was, so I tested it out. Then I ended up here."

"Vortex manipulator," said John immediately, after he'd taken it from her and turned it over in his hands. He handed it back. "It's a mode of time-travel. Type in co-ordinates, and it'll bring you anywhere you want at any point in time, if you get the co-ordinates right. The TARDIS is better."

Jenny was certain she'd heard of or read about these two items. She racked her brain for any information she had, holding the manipulator tight in her hands so that no harm could come to it.

"Who gave it to you?" her father asked. "What did they look like?"

Jenny tried instead to recall what the man had looked like. He had been a stranger anyway. "Umm … dark hair, white teeth. Medium height, I'd say … he was wearing one of those coats from Earth's military. And a blue shirt, with braces."

"Jack," the two men said together, with light-hearted grimaces.

"So I do know him," said Jenny. "But why did he give me this? We've never even met before."

"Must be down to us to give it to him. Lovely old Paradox."

The doors of the blue box opened. A redheaded woman stood there.

"Ok," she said, in what Jenny was sure was a Scottish accent. "You've used up your reunion time. Get in here."

"Jenny, this is Amy Pond."

Amy smiled. "Pleased to meet you, Jenny. I suppose I'm kind of your family."

"What do you mean?" Jenny asked interestedly, as they stepped inside the box, the interior of which was completely disproportionate to that of the small wooden box. Jenny was not bothered by this, however. She remembered where she'd heard the word TARDIS before. Not far into her travels, she'd found herself on a planet called the library – a whole planet filled with books. She'd looked up Time lords, eager to learn about her species. She was now standing in a type 40 TARDIS. Thinking of the Time lords' telepathic power, and the connection to the TARDIS each one had. She greeted it with her mind, and felt a reaction.

"Well," Amy explained. "My daughter is your father's wife, so, technically I'm your step-grandmother. Oh God," she said, realising what she'd said. A woman with blonde ringlets took her arm and sat her down in the seat that was not occupied while the shock wore off.

"You should've seen her face when she realised she was your mother-in-law," a man with closely-cropped brown hair muttered to the Doctor.

"Right," the Doctor said instead, while the man walked over to Amy. "Everyone, this is Jenny. Jenny, this is Rory, River, Rose, Sherlock and Molly."

Various greetings filled the air. Jenny returned them with a smile.

There was a knock on the TARDIS door. Jenny opened it, knowing who it would be.

"There's some sort of fog," said Hermione, gesturing behind her, and, sure enough, the lake and castle and everything else was surrounded by a white mist. "Can we stay here until it clears?"

"How could we fit?" Ginny, who was at the rear of the group, and could not see inside the blue box, asked.

"They've got an undetectable extension charm or something," Hermione explained.

"Yeah sure. Come in," said Jenny, stepping back from the doors, frowning a little at Hermione's words. "What do you mean?"

"How else would you fit everything in?" Hermione asked matter-of-factly.

"This is a TARDIS. It's got its own cloaking device, not a – a charm."

"Oh."

"Does that mean you're a witch?" Jenny asked, rather mistrustfully. She had come across a band of witches during her time spent travelling. They had been responsible for the light scar on her neck – determined to sacrifice her for something – a festival, most likely – during the full moon on a distant planet – uninhabited, wisely, apart from the witches. She was not keen for another similar experience.

Hermione, however, smiled kindly. "Yes, I am."

She then pulled out a thin piece of wood, holding it in front of her. The tip ignited. This was not how the witches Jenny had encountered used their magic. She relaxed slightly.

As Hermione pocketed her piece of wood, Jenny introduced the four of them to the others, explaining about the fog, even though she was sure they'd been listening.

Now that they had to stay put until the fog cleared, they sat down, mainly on the glass stairs, but Rose and Amy claiming the two seats. Pictures of the fog outside were brought up on the scanner, and they waited, talking or sitting in silence.

"Has this ever happened before?" Rose asked.

Harry shook his head. "Fog's rare enough around here, never mind this much."

"Would it have anything to do with –?"

"The universes?" the Doctor finished for her. She nodded. "Yes, I think so."

"What d'you mean?" Ron asked, looking confused.

"Something happened and now you can basically hop from one universe to the other," Rose explained matter-of-factly.

"That's impossible!" said Hermione immediately.

"Normally, yes, but now, no," John muttered.

"Doctor," said Amy suddenly. She'd recovered, and was now standing in front of the scanner, eyes transfixed on the screen.

"What?" he asked, hastening to join her.

"There's something out there …"

Jenny and several others joined the pair, peering at the screen. Amy was right, there was something out there. Camouflaged perfectly by the pearly-white mist, but discernable by their eyes and … armour – Jenny shut her eyes and opened them again, but nothing had changed – were polar bears. A girl, no more than sixteen years of age, followed them, and seemed to be in conversation with the bear that plodded along beside her. But that was impossible. Bears couldn't talk.

"Looks like you were right, Rose," said River.

A few minutes later, something else emerged from the mist. Something even odder than what they'd just witnessed. Creatures, something like elephants, though with too many legs and on wheels; aliens, most likely, approached the bears and the teenage girl. The bears seemed ready to attack, but the girl cried out, and they desisted. The girl walked up to the nearest creature, and moved her arm in an odd way. It responded with its trunk.

Not long after this spectacle, the fog cleared, leaving the grounds of the castle as green and sunny as they had been before. Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Harry were the first to leave, but Jenny followed, as did the rest of the people in the TARDIS.

The girl, wearing a bulky coat, the hood of which she lowered to reveal a head of dark blonde curls, seemed grateful of human company; people who could probably tell her where she was.

She unzipped the coat, and a pine-marten climbed up to settle itself around her neck, and turned to the group of people who were watching the animal suspiciously.

"My name is Lyra Silvertongue," she introduced. "And this is my dæmon, Pantalaimon. I come from a different world."

"Your what?" Molly asked.

"Dæmon," Lyra repeated. "It's my soul, in animal form. You're the kind of people whose souls are inside your bodies, am I right?"

"You're right," said Rose.

"Who are you?" Lyra asked.

"I'm the Doctor; this is Amy, Rory, River, Rose, John, Molly, Sherlock, Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron and Jenny."

He said all of this very fast, but Lyra seemed to keep up with him easily enough. She smiled. "Pleased to meet you all."

"What are those things?" Amy asked.

"We are the ice bears," the bears said in union, in their deep growling voices.

"And I am King Iorek Byrnison," one of them added.

"No, I meant –"

"They're the mulefa," Lyra explained, before she could finish. "They come from a world different to mine, but I've been there before. They don't know much English; they mainly communicate using their trunks. Dr Malone can understand them. This is Atal," she indicated the mulefa she had been communicating with earlier.

"What happened?" Sherlock asked, speaking for the first time in a while.

"There was a fog, like there was a few years ago. We walked through it and ended up here … wherever here is."

"Hogwarts," said Hermione. "In England."

"Do you know why this is happening?" the Doctor asked.

"There was a prophecy that said that walls between the universes would collapse, and that everyone would be in danger when they did," Lyra said.

"Do you have it with you?" River asked.

Lyra nodded. Pantalaimon leapt from her neck to accommodate her swinging her bag from the back and pulling out an extremely old leather-bound book full of legends and prophecies. River sat down with the girl on the grass, and read the prophecy in question, though what she seemed to think she could glean from it, Jenny did not know.

The others sat down on the grassy lakeside as well. Their number had dramatically increased, if the ice bears and mulefa were included. There were about a dozen of them combined, but she couldn't be sure, as they looked so similar. Only King Iorek Byrnison was distinguishable from the rest of the bears; his armour was different, and Jenny had long since lost track of which mulefa was Atal.

"What do we do now?" Jenny asked her father.

"I don't know," he murmured, truthfully.

"I think I can help you with that," said Lyra. They looked around to see her dæmon crawl into her backpack, and return with an object, swathed in cloth, clamped securely in his teeth. He deposited this on Lyra's lap. She murmured thanks to the pine-marten, stroking its fur before she removed a round, golden object. It seemed like an over-sized pocket-watch.

"It's an alethiometer," she explained, as she opened it, tucked her hair behind her ear and twiddled with the dials. "It tells truth. What do you want to know?"

"Where do we go from here? What do we do?"

Lyra nodded, focusing her concentration on the alethiometer. A minute of two later, she spoke up. "It says that our number is too small, and two weak. And it says to you, Doctor, that you need to gather your old friends. The ones that travelled with you, that saved the universe before. The 'children of time'; the defender of the earth, the one who left, the one who forgot, the one who waited, and the others who travelled with you. It says that two of them are already here …"

"Let me see that," the Doctor said suddenly. Lyra handed to instrument over to him.

"You mightn't be able to understand it," she warned.

"Dad?" Jenny asked. He didn't answer, focusing on the object in his hand. It seemed as though he'd asked the question out loud, but he hadn't. Jenny still heard it, reverberating inside her head, _Why Donna?_ She heard the answer too, in a strange, female voice.

_She is the strongest. She has your brain, though she does not know it any longer. She must fight; she is the only hope for this universe and all others._

Jenny glanced at her father, but he still did not look her way. Instead she probed his mind gently with hers, indicating that she had heard.

He still did not acknowledge it, instead asking the alethiometer a second question. _Will she die if she remembers?_

And the answer. _Yes._

* * *

><p><em>Another apology, sorry if this is too long. Hopefully I'll have threefour parts of roughly the same length. So far I've only written two pages of the second part, though._

_Let me know what you think, please =]_


	2. Part II

_So I was wondering if John and River would be able to hear the same thing as Jenny, and decided that they would, though maybe not as clearly, since they're only part-Time lord. And also, I put Martha and Mickey living in Oxford because it was convenient as to where Will and Dr Malone are. They could be living anywhere, really, right?_

_Anyway, hope you enjoy the second part, and I'm sorry if the ever-growing character list is confusing you. I know it's a pretty bad idea to have so many characters, but I think I did already mention that this fic would be random and crazy, and most likely no good, so ..._

* * *

><p><em>Part II<em>

* * *

><p>"Dad?" Jenny asked gently, horrified by what she'd just heard. The others, who had no idea what was going on – apart from River and John, who looked like the may have heard something, at least; they glanced at each other and then at the Doctor and Jenny quickly, looking confused – were asking countless questions. They were all unanswered, and Jenny's along with them.<p>

"What happened to her?" Jenny persisted.

For some strange reason, this snapped her father out of his trance. He looked at her.

"Meta-crisis, remember?" he asked softly. "It didn't just create John –" his eyes flickered to the person in question, "– it gave Donna my brain, and –"

"A human can't have a Time lord brain," Jenny cut him off. "It'd burn them up. What did you do, wipe her memory?"

He blinked several times in surprise, before nodding. "How did you know that?"

"I went to a planet called the library," said Jenny, smiling a little as memories flooded her – she could almost smell the books; she loved the smell of books. "Imagine, a whole pla—" she faltered, "… you know it?"

He merely nodded in response, eyes beseeching her not to press him for more information. She dropped it.

"What are you going to do about Donna?"

"There must be something," he muttered, dropping his gaze back to the instrument still held in his hands, which had turned white at the intensity of his grip. He released it.

_Is there anything I can do?_

The needle swung around the alethiometer's surface, contemplating.

_Possibly_

Jenny thought this a rather cheeky answer, but it was better than nothing, at least. Then a follow-up: _Your access to the future may be able to aid you, along with your friends' abilities_

"What does that mean?" Jenny asked.

"New Earth!" John exclaimed suddenly, proving that he had indeed heard. "They had a cure for everything!"

"Even this?" River sounded doubtful.

"Would anyone like to tell us what's going on?" Amy asked, irritated.

"The alethiometer's saying that we need Donna, if we're going to save the universes" said the Doctor, eyes downcast. "But –"

"Donna can't remember anything that happened while we travelled together, or she'd burn up and die," said John, in a hollow voice, his momentary excitement gone.

"Do you think the … people at New New York would be able to help?" Rose asked.

"They cured people with every illness," the Doctor shrugged.

"That was you."

"It was their medicine," John said.

"So … off to Chiswick?"

"Off to Chiswick."

* * *

><p>Wilfred Mott led a quiet life after Donna's wedding. He still watched the stars, and thought of the Doctor every night, as he promised he would, but he never mentioned anything, in Donna's best interests.<p>

Still, his granddaughter experienced those frightening moments when she stood still, gingerly touching her head and complaining that it pained her. And those moments when she looked so sad, but when asked why, she could not come up with an answer.

Wilf explained to Shaun what had happened to Donna; he felt that the man should know, considering that it was him who would have to deal with Donna's off moments now.

They still lived in the small flat, despite the lottery win. Donna's argument was that she liked it there, and it was closer to where her mother and grandfather lived. Shaun could only agree.

The night before the first wedding anniversary of his granddaughter and her husband, Wilf sat in his usual spot 'up the hills', watching the stars and drinking tea from a thermos flask. Donna had joined him earlier, but gone back again when a fresh bout of head pain hit her. She was by now masking them as headaches, so as not to worry people, but he knew better.

He wondered where the Doctor was now, and whether he was alone. He hoped not; he'd grown attached to the man that was – impossibly – older than him, and did not want him to be on his own. Surely one of those friends was with him.

He was almost positive that he heard the sound that that blue box made, but convinced himself that it was only because of where his thoughts had led him – yet again.

"Going daft in my old age," he muttered, drinking the last of the tea and packing up his telescope, bracing himself for his daughter's wrath.

But, despite the attempts of Wilfred Mott to convince himself otherwise, the TARDIS _had _landed, though too far away for him to possibly have heard it.

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS on his own, surveying his surroundings. He recognised a figure walking down the street from a long way off; Wilfed Mott. He smiled as the figure did a double-take at the sight of the TARDIS, but he continued to walk until he reached it.

"Hello Wilf," he smiled.

"… is it you?"

"Yeah, what do you think?" he held out his arms for inspection.

"You did change, then," the old man murmured.

He nodded.

"You look even younger."

"Funny how that happens," the Doctor mused. "How's Donna?"

"Still in that flat, winning the lottery didn't change anything. Still, she's happy with Shaun."

"Good, I'm glad."

"Come in and see her?" Wilf requested. "She lives just up the road a bit. Come and say hello."

"I suppose she doesn't know this face …" the Doctor allowed himself to be led across the road and over to where Donna lived.

Wilf knocked on the door.

Donna was laughing as she opened it. "Heya Gramps. Still trying to escape Mum, are you?" she noted the flask he held in one hand and telescope in the other.

"Something like that."

"Who're you?" she asked.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," he smiled, deciding to be truthful and see what effect it had on Donna. He still had no idea how to go about this.

"Doctor who?" she asked curiously, and then her hand jumped to her head.

"Are you all right, sweetheart?"

"Yeah, it's just that … headache again. It won't leave me alone. I'm Donna. Donna Temple-Noble. Pleased to meet you," she offered a hand.

The Doctor shook it. "And you."

He saw her eyes glow faintly orange for a fraction of a second, but she did not seem distressed, she merely smiled.

"Come in then, I'll make tea."

Donna led the two of them into the kitchen, where Shaun was sitting at the table, reading a book. He put it down with a smile. "Hello Wilf, and …?"

"The Doctor," he smiled back, offering a hand. Shaun shook it, frowning momentarily.

"The –?"

"Yes," Wilf said, conveying with his eyes that this was the man he'd told Shaun about, and that he was not to mention anything in front of Donna.

"Who calls themselves, 'the Doctor'?" Donna asked, turning to face him as she filled the kettle.

"Me," he replied simply. "I have absolutely no idea why."

"Are you even a Doctor?" she frowned.

"Yes."

"Of what?"

"Everything."

"You look like you've barely even finished college," Donna said, sitting down at the table with a soft sigh. Her hand suddenly jumped to her temple and her eyes flashed orange – more noticeable this time. Shaun glared at the Doctor.

"I need the bathroom," she muttered, a moment later, rising from the table and disappearing down the hall.

"What's wrong?" Wilf asked, getting up to finish the tea.

"I need her," the Doctor rubbed his forehead. "Every universe and every creature in them are in danger, and apparently we need Donna to save us. Again."

"I thought she could never remember?" Shaun asked.

"She can't. But I think she might be all right. I'm going to take her to a hospital in the future. I've been there before; they have a cure for everything."

"And if that doesn't work?" Wilf frowned.

"I'll take her memories back and leave her home. I'm not going to put her life in danger any more than I already have."

The silent question hung in the air.

"All right," both men said at the same moment, just as Donna returned.

"Donna?" the Doctor asked. "I think I might be able to help your headache."

She looked at him in surprise. "Really?"

He nodded. "Yes. Just … relax, ok?"

He walked over to her, pressing his fingers to either side of her head. She closed her eyes and allowed him to, showing a strange amount of trust to someone she'd just met – perhaps she still remembered him, at the very back of her mind.

He let the memories he had taken from her all that time ago to flow back into her head, making a last-minute decision to include his own memories of what had happened when he brought her home, and that of his regeneration, so that she would know who he was.

He stood back, watching her concernedly as her eyes flickered open. She blinked several times, her eyes glowing orange yet again. They returned to their normal colour and seemed to focus.

Donna took a deep breath, looking around at her surroundings.

Then she slapped him.

He couldn't help but smile as he touched his smarting cheek.

"Oi, Spaceman!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I said I wanted to travel with you forever, and what did you do? Wipe my memory and dump me back home!"

She glared at him for several moments, then her expression softened and she hugged him instead.

"Have you changed _at all_? You're just as skinny!" she said, as she released him. "Well then, what's happened that you've had to put my life in danger?"

"The walls between the universes are breaking down. Again."

She smiled. "Right! Sounds like fun. We'll skip the tea." She kissed her grandfather on the cheek, her husband on the lips and disappeared into the hall with a "bye!"

"Do you want to come with us?" the Doctor asked, mainly directing the question at Wilf.

"No, you two go and save the world," he smiled.

The Doctor nodded. "Right, see you soon."

He followed Donna into the hall, where she'd put on her coat – the same leather one from the last time she'd been with him.

"Are you ok?" he asked her.

"I'm strong," she said. "I'll be fine. I'm sure I'll hold out until you give me this treatment I know you're planning."

She opened the door and stepped out into the chilly night air.

"She looks a little different," Donna remarked, striding across the street.

"Even more on the inside," the Doctor said, opening the door and stepping inside.

The people assembled inside looked up, looking relieved to find that Donna was amongst them and all right – for now.

"Hello half-me," she said, sitting next to John on the bottom of the staircase. "What'd you end up calling yourself?"

"John Smith," he murmured in response. "Hello Donna."

"Hello," she repeated, smiling.

"You should sit down," the Doctor said, with a slight frown. "You know what's going to happen next."

"I am sitting down," she said, gesturing to the step she was sitting on, though she knew he probably meant a proper seat. "And I told you, I'm strong. I lasted a while last time, it'll be the same this time. Anyway, where are you taking me?"

"New New York," the Doctor answered, flipping switches at the console. "And if that doesn't work, Sisters of the Infinite Schism."

* * *

><p>The TARDIS materialised on a street corner in the outskirts of Oxford, unbeknownst to its residents, apart from a old woman who had been looking out of her kitchen window – but the perception filter did its job; she did not question its appearance.<p>

Martha Smith-Jones stirred sugar into the mug of tea she'd made her husband, placing it on the table next to the laptop, which he was working on. She picked up her own mug, wrapping her hands around it as she leaned against the countertop and studied Mickey with a contemplative frown.

"What are you doing?" she asked, part-curiously, part-suspiciously. "You're not breaking into UNIT again, are you? I told you, you can't do that."

Mickey merely laughed, a glint in his eye. Martha shook her head at him, but her reprimand was drowned out by a sudden, never-ceasing pounding on the front door.

She laid her mug down with a sigh that was almost exasperated, touching Mickey's shoulder gently to let him know that she'd answer it, though he probably knew that already.

"All right!" she called, as she hurried down the hall. "I'm _coming_! You can stop!"

But still the hammering did not cease until she had opened it. She stood there, open-mouthed, as her eyes moved around, taking in the scene before her.

A young woman, strikingly familiar with her long blonde hair, secured in a pony-tail down her back, and mysterious eyes, which held a panicked look, stood in the doorway. Behind her, parked across the street on the corner, also achingly familiar, was a blue box.

"… what?" Martha managed to ask, but her voice was barely above a whisper, and a clearly alive Jenny appeared not to hear it. She quickly began to explain the situation.

"Martha! You need to come with me, quickly; it's Donna! She's really ill. We don't know what to do, but maybe you and Rory could –"

"What's wrong with her?" Martha asked, finding her voice as she snapped into her 'doctor mode', as Mickey called it.

"She's burning up," Jenny explained, a little calmer but just as quickly, the urgent tone in her voice still present. "It's the meta-crisis, she can't cope with everything in her head. We need you! Please!"

Martha nodded immediately, brushing past Jenny. She turned around to face her again, "Tell Mickey, would you?"

As the young woman who was much younger than she appeared nodded, Martha hurried over to the TARDIS. The door was slightly ajar; she pushed it open rather cautiously. She found herself in a different-looking and deserted console room.

"Hello?" she called.

A man with short brown hair, looking rather distressed, with his sleeves rolled up, appeared at the top of one of the staircases.

"You must be Martha. I'm Rory. This way."

"Jenny mentioned you … how's Donna?" Martha asked, as she hurriedly climbed the glass stairs.

"Better. I think she might make it out of this alive. We took her to new Earth, they gave her something …"

Martha followed Rory up the stairs and along a corridor to the med bay.

The scene that met her eyes was crazed. Donna was laid on one of the beds that were unlike any hospital beds that Martha had seen – still with that build, but more comfortable, from what she could see. She looked as though she were experiencing a fretful nightmare. The Doctor – or was it the clone? Martha could never be sure any more – Rose and a man she did not recognise with floppy brown hair were gathered around her bedside, trying to improve her condition. Two women, one with brown hair and one with red, stood quite nearby, trying to assist the three in any way they could. A group of onlookers were sitting on or gathered around another bed. Martha recognised none of them. Jenny and Mickey had arrived. Both stayed by the doorway while Martha and Rory made a beeline for Donna.

Together, they checked her vital signs. Martha was surprised to find the situation less grave than she had imagined. Rory was right – Donna was more or less out of danger, but she had a fever. Her brain seemed quite all right, however.

"What happened?" Martha asked.

"The meta-crisis. It created me, but it fed back into Donna," said the man that had to be the clone. "No human can deal with a Time lord brain. I can, because I was created like this. I'm John, by the way," he added, as if he'd read Martha's mind.

"I wiped her memories, so she could survive," said the other man, who had to be the Doctor. "But she could never remember … then Lyra's –" he nodded towards the girl with the dark-blonde curls, who was sitting on the other bed – "alethiometer told us that we needed Donna, to fight whatever it is that's caused this."

"She's got a fever, but I think she'll be all right," Martha said. "What is 'this', exactly?"

"The walls between the universes have collapsed," Rose said. "How else would we be here?"

Martha frowned at the 'we', but did not mention it. "What's causing it? It can't be the same as last time; the earth's in the same place."

"No; but something's happened," the redhead sighed.

"When did you regenerate?" Martha asked the Doctor.

"Just after I saw you and Mickey," he murmured in response, eyes flickering surreptitiously to the door, where Mickey still stood.

"I never said thanks for saving us from that Sontaran," Martha managed a smile.

"It's the least I could do," he shrugged.

Martha nodded, focusing her attention back to Donna, who was still tossing and turning, though slightly less so, at least. Martha pulled out a stethoscope.

"Can you get inside her head?" she asked, eyes flickering to John. "You're connected, right? Can you see what she's dreaming about; maybe calm her down?"

He took Donna's hand, closing his eyes. "It's just memories …"

A moment later, Donna fell still, breathing deeply. Martha smiled in thanks, listening to Donna's heartbeat. She was relieved to find it strong.

Unconsciously, she moved the stethoscope over to the left side of Donna's chest, and froze. She tried again, biting her lip.

"Martha?"

She looked up slowly; everyone was looking at her.

"There's a heartbeat … it's faint, but it's there."

They all gaped.

"Donna's got two hearts."

They simply stared, unable to form a proper reaction. Rose spoke first, startled, "…what?"

"Listen," Martha said, handing the stethoscope to her. She took it, placing it in her ears and listening. Her confusion seemed only to heighten. Rory walked off, mumbling, "I'll get her something for the fever …"

"It must be her body's reaction to the Time lord brain …" John murmured in a matter-of-fact tone. "It needs two hearts to support it."

"How did this happen?" Rose asked, looking around at everyone's faces. They all seemed as surprised as her, however.

"There's never been a Human-Time lord meta-crisis before," the Doctor murmured, eyes flickering from Donna's sleeping form to John's concerned face. "We don't know the circumstances."

"So Donna's going to be all right?" Jenny asked, looking as though she was torn between worry and happiness. Donna was out of the woods – if the fever was not taken into account – but her extra heart had everyone concerned about her health again.

"Yes, I think so," said Martha, flashing a smile at the girl. "If we can bring down this fever … did you find any medicine?"

Rory nodded, opening his hand to reveal a small bottle of fever pills. Martha shook Donna gently. Her eyes flickered open.

"Donna?"

"Martha?" she murmured blearily.

"How d'you feel?" Martha asked.

"Awful," she muttered in response.

"You've got a fever," Martha explained gently.

"Here, take this," Rory opened the container and handed it to Donna, who managed to prop herself up on her elbows. Rose handed her a glass of water. She took the pills, sitting up and leaning back against the pillows. She gave the tiniest of yawns.

"I still haven't forgiven you, space-man," she glowered at the Doctor. Her eyes turned to John. "And there's no point in you feeling guilty. It's not your fault. You didn't _make_ me touch that hand of yours."

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked tentatively, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"My head feels fine," she assured him. "Though I do have a pain in my chest; it's the fever I suppose."

He merely nodded, not revealing anything.

Donna's eyes moved around the room, eyes lingering on the people she had only just met – she remembered most of their names. "How are you alive?" she asked Jenny, who was leaning against the wall near the door, watching the scene. "Never got a chance to ask, with my head and everything …"

"I don't know," the young woman replied, shrugging. "I woke up, not long after you'd all left. No idea what happened to me. I must have regenerated – sort of."

Donna nodded, yawning again, more widely this time.

"You should sleep," said Rory. "You'll be all right now. These seem to work better than normal ones would …"

"Who exactly are you?" Donna frowned at him. "Sorry," she added, at his expression. "My brain was burning up at the time, you know."

"Rory Williams," he answered. "And this is my wife –"

"Amy, yes I remember her …"

Amy laughed, walking over to her husband and putting an arm around his shoulders. "C'mon, I'm sure she would've remembered you if her brain hadn't been on fire."

"It wasn't on fire."

"D'you remember us?"

"Let's see," Donna murmured. "Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Lyra, River, Sherlock and … Molly?"

"Yeah," she smiled.

"Pleased to meet you," Donna smiled. And then, "Right, you lot, out!"

There was not a whole lot she could do from her bed; she did push John off from where he was still sitting. He landed on the ground in an ungraceful heap. Rose laughed, offering a hand to him. He scowled, but allowed her to pull him to his feet. Donna rolled her eyes at his appalling co-ordination. "Things must be bad if you need to put my life in danger. Go – save the universes."

Sending smiles to the 'patient', the entire group trooped out of the med bay, leaving only John, who was still concerned about the one he was connected to, and Rose lingered by the door.

I'm _fine_," Donna grumbled, shoving him. He moved away quickly, not wanting to be pushed over again. "Get out of here; go. I mean it; I'm getting up if you don't go!" she added when he still did not move.

"You're sure you'll be all right?"

"If I'm not, you'll sure know about it."

John smiled. That sounded more like the Donna he knew. He nodded, leaving the med bay.

"What?" he frowned, as Rose, leaning against the doorframe, gave him an amused look.

"She's your best friend, isn't she? I've never seen you like that with anyone before."

He nodded as they walked down the hall.

"When d'you think she'll realise she's got two hearts?" Rose murmured, not expecting an answer, and none was given.

In the console room, someone – Hermione, John suspected, but it could have been any of the four – had turned the two seats into couches, which had just enough space to seat most of them – John still sat on the steps, preferring it there. The Doctor, River and Lyra remained on their feet. The Doctor and River were both, for some reason, looking at the scanner, while Lyra lurked nearby. She was annoyed at herself; her personality had always been brash and bold, and yet she found herself holding some degree of respect for the Doctor. It was absurd; he was the most childish person she'd ever come across – including actual children. Pantalaimon had curled himself around her neck, and was hissing in her ear to try and get her to talk to the Time lord.

He looked up, "Are you going to stand there all day?" he asked, sounding somewhat amused. "What's wrong?"

"I have two friends in this Oxford," she explained. "I was wondering if they could come with us."

"Of course they can!" the Doctor exclaimed, seeming somehow, even more child-like than ever. "The more the merrier! Unless they're Daleks or Cybermen or something. We've got plenty of room! Where do they live?"

"In the town …" Lyra answered, just restraining herself from rolling her eyes.

No sooner had she said it than the Doctor and River, in sync, walked around the console, flipping switches and levers and pressing buttons. They were so in tune; Lyra had never before seen a couple like it. This made her heart ache, and then leap, almost in the same second, at the prospect of seeing Will again. She allowed the thought to cross her mind, for a fleeting moment, that he could have a girlfriend.

"Of course he doesn't," Pantalaimon muttered in her ear, in a tone so matter-of-fact that Lyra smiled. The TARDIS landed as noisily as ever, despite River's argument over the misuse of the stabilisers. Lyra was out the door almost immediately, but, once there, she realised she had no idea where to go from there. She did not know where Will or Dr Malone lived. They could've even moved to a different city or country, for all she knew.

Looking at it logically, with the help of Pantalaimon, Lyra decided to visit the place where Dr Malone had once worked. Perhaps they would give her an address, and, even if it were an old one, it was somewhere to start.

She had almost reached the building when something caught her eye. It was a cat, but a cat like no other.

It was Kirjava.

* * *

><p>Donna did not have any more nightmares – at least any she remembered. She fell asleep not long after she had successfully gotten rid of John, and woke up a while later, though which time, she did not know.<p>

She felt remarkably better – Rory was right, the pills worked very well. She did not seem to have a fever of any kind, and her head was not hurting her at all. She silently thanked the strange cat-faced people of New New York, who had injected something into her arm which had knocked her out, but apparently had healed her.

Strangely, however, the pain in her chest was still there.

It was not excruciating, and she could easily forget it if she put her now-enhanced mind to it, but it still bothered her. She could not tell what the Doctor was thinking – perhaps the link between them had been weakened somewhat by his regeneration – but she knew that John was still worrying about her, even now. She smiled slightly, though she felt irritated all the same. He was getting to be too much like an over-protective brother, though their bond was much the same, she supposed. They did share some of the same traits, after all.

She had successfully blocked out the pain in her chest, so she eased herself out of the more-comfortable-than-usual bed and wandering out of the med bay, probing the TARDIS's consciousness with her own mind, asking to be guided to the console room and the others.

* * *

><p>Lyra wove her way through the crowded Oxford streets. Luckily for her, Kirjava, her guide, was clearly visible – the colour of her fur stood out. The two dæmons had greeted each other immediately, and Lyra had felt a rush of warmth at Pantalaimon's happiness.<p>

That happiness had spread to her now, as she and her dæmon followed the cat to where Will lived.

They reached a quieter street, filled with terraced houses, a pub and a corner shop. Kirjava led them to number six, and then, with surprising strength and agility, jumped onto her back paws and pressed the doorbell with a front paw.

The door opened almost immediately, by a tall boy Lyra did not recognise; he was around her age - give or take a year, perhaps - and had mousy brown hair and bright blue eyes that sparkled. He seemed to have been expecting Kirjava, as his eyes went immediately to the ground.

"Will!" he called over his shoulder. "Kirjava's ba-! Oh ..." he seemed to notice Lyra only then. "Who are you?"

"My name's Lyra Silvertongue," she smiled at him. "And this is my dæmon, Pantalaimon. I was a friend of Will's ..."

The boy raised his eyebrows at her as though he knew. Perhaps he did.

"Jake!" called a voice Lyra did recognise. "What's going on?"

Jake merely flashed a smile at Lyra. "Jake Malone. Do come in."

He stood to the side, letting Lyra pass through. Kirjava padded into the house first, muttering to herself. Lyra, Pantalaimon around her neck, followed.

As she walked into the kitchen, a mug smashed.

Two faces stared blankly at her, unable to utter a word. Neither Lyra nor Jake spoke either, but the dæmons – Kirjava first twisting herself around Will's legs – slunk back into the hall, conversing in hushed voices.

Neither of them looked a great deal different – Dr Malone's face had a smattering of wrinkles, and Lyra thought she saw a grey hair or two. Will didn't look any different at all – despite the fact that he'd grown, of course. His face was currently transfixed in shock, his hand with the two fingers missing still clutching mid-air, while his mug –apparently empty – lay on the floor, smashed to smithereens.

"… hello," Lyra smiled slightly, suddenly nervous.

* * *

><p>The group – most of them sitting on the two console seats that had somehow been elongated into sofas – must have noticed the sound of her footfalls – muffled slightly as she was barefoot, but the glass floor was, surprisingly, not at all cold.<p>

She merely smiled at all the questioning and concerned eyes of the people she knew and the ones she'd just met. "Hi."

They shot her greeting back at her, sounding like school-children in the unity of their voices. John laid a hand on the bottommost step of the staircase, asking without words for her to sit next to him. She complied, saying, "I'm fine," before he could ask.

"Where's Lyra?" she asked, more loudly, noticing the absence of the mysterious girl with the dark blonde hair.

"Gone to find her friend," the Doctor replied nonchalantly. "She should be back soon …"

As if on cue, there was a polite knock on the TARDIS door. Donna could hear Rory muttering something about timing, while Jenny, who seemed to have taken door-opening task onto herself – no one else made a move – walked over the doors and opened one of them.

A woman with greying brown hair and glasses – in her late forties or early fifties – stood in the Oxford street, smiling a little at Jenny. "I'm Dr Mary Malone. This is my son, Jake, his friend, Will, and you know Lyra." she motioned to the three teenagers behind her. Will and Jake looked something alike – the same height, though Will seemed older and more well-built. Jenny noticed he had two fingers missing on his left hand, and wondered what had happened to him.

"I'm Jenny," she smiled at the four, stepping aside to let them past.

They walked in – neither Will nor Lyra batting an eyelid, daemons following them – but Dr Malone and Jake staring around in awe. Jenny was expecting the, "It's bigger on the inside!" before it happened.

"Excellent skills of deduction," Sherlock muttered, looking slightly annoyed. Jenny bit back a laugh, sitting herself between Hermione and Martha.

"Yes, it is," said River, casting an amused look over the mother and son.

"Welcome to the TARDIS!" the Doctor exclaimed grinning.

Almost everyone rolled their eyes.

* * *

><p>Gwen did not look up from the computer as she heard the door clanking open and the indistinct conversation between Jack and Ianto. She hated being left alone in the hub, but there was hardly any alternative. She still missed Tosh and Owen terribly – they all did – but there was nothing they could do. They had been assigned a UNIT guard 'for their protection' in the immediate weeks following the deaths of the two members, but his being there had been completely pointless. They could either take care of themselves or they couldn't, but Jack had not voiced this, so nor did Gwen or Ianto.<p>

"How'd it go?" she asked with a smile.

"Hallucinations," Ianto rolled his eyes.

"Happens to some who've seen aliens. Can't deal with it," said Jack pointedly.

"Did you give her the amnesia pill?"

"Yeah. Any rift activity?"

Gwen shook her head. "No, there's nothing."

Jack frowned, reaching her side and peering into the screen. "What are they doing?"

The three of them had agreed that the absence of rift activity had been odd. It made their jobs much less busy and exciting. Gwen had had so many days off that Rhys was asking questions. She had a suspicion that this was an attempt to get rid of her. Of course, she didn't really mind. Jack and Ianto were good together, and it brought some degree of happiness to their group.

"What's that?" the latter's voice broke through her thoughts. He indicated a blip on the screen. It had not come through the rift, but it was alien – it would not have registered on their radar otherwise.

Jack laughed. "It's the TARDIS! It's the Doctor!"

He walked over to the lift before Gwen or Ianto could react. They glanced at each other.

"Well, are you coming or not?" Jack asked.

"We're just going to _leave?_"

"That _was_the plan, and it's not like there's anything to keep us busy here. Maybe the Doctor knows what's going on with the rift."

Gwen and Ianto exchanged another (doubtful) look, but followed Jack.

"We need to be quick," he said, as the lift started to rise. "He might just be stopping for fuel …"

Gwen shot him an incredulous look. "Fuel?"

"His machine – that blue box – feeds off the rift energy. Good power source for a TARDIS."

"And that is …?"

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It travels through time and space. You've seen the inside of it – well, a bit of it."

"The subwave network?" Ianto asked.

"That's the one."

The three of them strode over to the TARDIS, which was parked not far away from the lift. Jack knocked on the door. A black man Gwen did not recognise opened it.

"Who the hell are you?" Jack asked.

"What do you mean, who the hell am I; who the hell are you?"

The two men laughed, hugging each other.

"Mickey Mouse! I can't believe I'm actually happy to see you!"

"That doesn't mean you're gonna start calling me Minnie Mouse, does it?" asked a voice Gwen did recognise, and Martha appeared.

"You got married?"

"Yup," she grinned, holding up her left hand to display her wedding and engagement rings. "Hey Gwen, Ianto."

"Nice to see you again, Martha," Gwen smiled. "Congratulations."

"Thanks," Martha was grinning again, as she hugged Jack.

"Are you three coming in?" a voice called.

"Ah, the voice of authority has spoken," Martha smiled. "You remember Donna?"

"Hard not to forget her," Jack grinned.

The three remaining members of the Torchwood team stepped into the TARDIS, following Martha and Mickey. Jack surveyed the group assembled inside, and immediately hugged a blonde woman Gwen recognised. Rose, she thought her name was.

"Good to see you again," she smiled at him.

"Never thought I would see you again," he said, smiling back.

"Jack," the Doctor nodded, smiling just slightly.

"Doctor," he nodded back.

"No," the man, who, if he was not the Doctor, was obviously a stranger, shook his head. "It's John."

Jack hugged him. "What've you been up to?"

"Not much, if you compare it to this," he shrugged. "I went to live in that parallel world with Rose, not that I had much choice in the matter," he shot a look at a man with floppy brown hair, dressed in a tweed suit and bowtie. "Got a job; a house; a dog."

"Engaged," Gwen added, raising her eyebrows. Everyone's eyes turned to Rose, whose own eyes jumped to her t-shirt, hand resting on her chest, over something that was hanging from a chain around her neck; obviously an engagement ring.

"That's great news!" Martha exclaimed, though she folded her arms, watching Rose. "Why hide it?"

"We weren't ready to tell anyone," Rose muttered, averting her eyes from everyone else's questioning gazes. "Mum and dad don't even know …"

"I'm so happy for you," Gwen smiled at the woman she hardly knew, who had been questioning her heritage last time she'd seen her. But Jack was friendly with her – she knew she could trust her. She hugged Rose, who seemed surprised, but hugged back. "Getting married was the best thing I ever did, well, apart from the … incident …"

"What incident?" several voices asked interestedly.

"Oh, I was bitten by an alien," she explained quickly. "Ended up pregnant. Rhys saved me from being torn to pieces by the mother …"

"Is that your husband?" a young woman, with blonde hair like Rose's, but longer, asked.

"Yeah," she smiled. "Who are you?"

"I'm Jenny," the young woman said.

"Captain Jack Harkness," Jack offered a hand. Jenny glanced apprehensively at him, but shook it.

"_Jack._"

"No need to ask who you are then," Jack grinned at the tweed-clad man. "You haven't changed at all!"

"That's my daughter you're talking to."

This shocked Jack. He stared between the man and a woman with blonde ringlets who he also seemed to know.

"Oh, no," the woman said immediately, as though reading his mind. "She's not mine."

"Then how …?"

"Progenation machine, wasn't it?" Martha asked.

"Yeah," said Donna. "We ended up on a planet called Messaline. He got collared by a couple of soldiers, 'processed', his hand shoved into a machine, created Jenny."

"Who are you all?" Gwen asked interestedly, breaking the silence that followed.

"Well," Jenny said, glancing back at the group. "You seem to know Rose, Martha, Mickey and Donna … that's the Doctor, my dad, his wife, River Song, her parents, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, and John Smith, he's kind of like a clone of dad … meta-crisis … Sherlock Holmes, Molly Hooper, Lyra Silvertongue, Will Parry, Dr Mary Malone and her son, Jake … that's a mouthful," she muttered.

Jack made a point of shaking everyone's hands, and grinning at them. Most rolled their eyes, but Molly bristled. He laughed. "Captain Jack Harkness, this is Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones. We're the Torchwood team."

"I'm sorry about Owen and Tosh," Martha said. "I'm sorry I –"

"It's fine, Martha. We know."

She nodded.

"Did you hear about Sarah-Jane?" Mickey asked the three. They nodded, casting sorrowful eyes downwards.

"What?"

They all looked up again, taking in the Doctor's confused expression. Rose and John, too, were frowning, but they seemed to have an inkling of what was going on.

"Sarah-Jane," Martha said quietly. "Did you not hear? She died a few weeks ago … cancer …"

It took a moment for the news to sink in. The faces of the three of them showed only shock, horror. Then a choked sob echoed through the silence. John hugged Rose, and River's fingers tightened around the Doctor's.

"Right, we're going to visit Luke," said Donna, striding over to the console and setting the controls. She too seemed rattled by the news, but not too distraught.

The TARDIS landed. Donna led the way out, Jenny followed quickly, and the group after her, John with his arm around Rose, and the Doctor and River's hands still linked. Martha's eyes were downcast, as were Mickey's, Gwen's and Ianto's. Jack stared determinedly forward, and was the one to ring the doorbell. Amy and Rory followed, after a tentative glance at each other, and shot sympathetic smiles at anyone who would meet their eyes. The others remained in the TARDIS, not wanting to intrude.

A young girl, about eleven or twelve years old, with light brown hair and eyes rimmed with red, wearing a t-shirt that was far too big for her, and served more as a dress, opened it.

"Hello," she said, lip trembling slightly as she took in the large group assembled before her.

"Hello," Jenny replied kindly, feeling instantly drawn to the girl.

"Sky?" a voice called, and a young man with brown hair, darker than the girl's, looking just as distraught by the emotional upheaval that Sarah-Jane's death had brought, appeared, putting a protective arm around the little girl's shoulders. "Oh. Hello," his eyes moved over the group. "You've … you've heard then."

"I'm so sorry, Luke," Donna said, scooping both him and the girl, apparently called Sky – who was dragged in by Luke's arm still around her shoulders – into a hug.

"Who are you?" Luke and Jenny asked at the same time, as Donna released the two of them.

"I'm Luke Smith," Luke said. "I think you all know that … this is my sister, Sky."

"I'm Donna Temple-Noble," said Donna. "I met your mum. It was only the once, but I could tell she was a great woman – she'd travelled with this dumbo, after all," she punched the Doctor lightly in the arm. He sidestepped away from her slightly, but smiled weakly.

"Mum, Clyde and Rani did say you'd changed," Luke murmured, eyes of the Doctor. "Who're you, then, if he's the Doctor?" he turned to John.

"John Smith," he said, smiling in greeting, before his face returned to its sorrowful look. "Your mum might have mentioned; biological meta-crisis? I came from his hand, anyway."

"I'm Jenny," said Jenny. "The Doctor's daughter."

Luke smiled at her, but frowned. "You've got a daughter?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "You've got a sister?"

"Yeah, I suppose," Luke murmured. "Long stories."

"Luke? Sky? What's going on? You've been there ages!" a female voice called from what seemed like the attic.

"Of course. You'd better come in," said Luke, he led the way up the stairs, his arm never leaving his sister's shoulders.

Two black teenagers, one male, one female, seeming around the same age as each other, and Luke, stood in the attic. The young woman was pacing, but stopped when she saw Luke. The young man was leaning against the window, watching the large computer screen, that seemed to be scanning for something.

"_TARDIS detected,_" the computer pronounced, in a cool male voice.

"I thought so," the young woman said. "You ok, Sky?"

The girl nodded.

"This is Clyde Langer and Rani Chandra; my friends," said Luke.

"Doctor," Rani nodded, meeting his eyes. "Long time no see."

"It has been, hasn't it?" the Doctor mused quietly

"Who are you?" Clyde asked.

"Hmm …" the Doctor glanced at the group. "This is Jenny, my daughter, River Song, my wife, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, her parents. Donna Temple-Noble, Rose Tyler, Martha Smith-Jones and her husband, Mickey, they all used to travel with me. This is John Smith, he grew from my hand. And these three are the Torchwood team, Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones."

"Nice to meet you," said Rani, in a subdued voice.

Luke wound a scarf around his neck. "I suppose you came to visit the graveyard."

"Luke –"

He smiled weakly. "Don't bother. It's all been said."

"So soon after Brig, though …"

"Let's just go."

The group trooped out of the attic, and the house, Rani taking Sky's hand. The closeness of all four of them was astounding, and Jenny couldn't help but feel slightly jealous.

The graveyard was not far, so they walked, earning plenty of odd looks from other people on the streets. Their group was unusually large, after all.

The graveyard was, as far as any of them could see, deserted but for them, and Sarah-Jane's grave was the only fresh mound of earth. A bunch of fresh roses had been laid there, and there was not yet a headstone. Jenny watched, feeling like an outsider – though she was not alone, Amy and Rory too stood back – as the group, one by one, paid their respects to Sarah-Jane, the Doctor, understandably, taking the longest time, until Luke knelt down on the damp grass and murmured to his dead mother.

Jenny took Sky under her wing as the girl looked dangerously close to crying. She put her arm around her, and Sky began to cry silently, shaking from head to toe. Jack took it upon himself to cheer her up, despite his own red eyes, and fed her an endless supply of jokes, only desisting when she gave a half-sob, half-laugh, and shot him a grateful, though wobbly, smile.

Sky was like her, Jenny decided, as was Luke, but that was not surprising, as they were siblings. There was something in their eyes that told her they were younger than they looked, just as the Doctor's eyes did the opposite. She wondered what their circumstances were, they could hardly be the same as her own.

"We've got more in common than you'd think, you know," she said, as they walked back to the house, both to Sky, who was still under her arm, and Luke, who was walking beside his sister.

"Oh?" Luke raised his eyebrows.

"How?" Sky asked curiously, wiping tears from her face with her sleeve, looking a little brighter; it seemed Jack's attempts to cheer her up had not been in vain.

"I'm younger than I look, too," said Jenny. The two shot her matching incredulous looks. She gave a quick laugh. "Yeah, I can tell."

"How old are you, then?" Luke asked her.

"Two and … a half … I think," she replied. "It's kind of hard to keep track when you're travelling. What about you two?"

"I'm three; Sky's a few months."

"So how did Sarah-Jane end up with such a pair of kids?" Jenny asked, smiling at them both.

"We were adopted," said Luke. "I was created by aliens – the bane, they were called – and I'm pretty sure Sky _is _an alien."

"I think so. I was a bomb," Sky scowled.

"She was also a baby one minute and a twelve-year old girl the next," Rani, who was behind them, and had evidently been listening to their conversation, said. "I'm sure she is an alien."

"Well, that's all right, so am I."

"What about you?" Luke asked.

"Oh, a machine took a tissue sample from Dad, grew me from it. I never was a baby."

"Neither was I."

"You could have a club or something," Rani laughed, as they reached the house, piling into the kitchen, though Luke climbed the stairs to the attic.

Rani set about making tea, though, with the enormity of their group, this was no easy task, so Donna and Ianto went to help her, while the others sat at the table or stood around it.

"Lucky the rest of us didn't come in," Jenny muttered to Amy, who sat across from her at the table.

"Yeah," she said, distractedly.

"There's more of you?" Sky asked incredulously.

"Yeah, just a few people we picked up …"

"What's going on?" Rani asked, as she sat at the table next to Amy, directing the question to the Doctor, who stood leaning against the wall.

"What do you mean?" he raised his eyebrows.

"You all turn up here," she waved a hand to the other people gathered in the kitchen. "If it were for Sarah-Jane, you could've come to the funeral, but you didn't. So, obviously, you're here for a different reason. What?"

"I only just heard about Sarah," the Doctor murmured. "I didn't know when I'd turn up – but the TARDIS always brings me where I need to go, I can count on her for that. And yes, there is a reason there's so many people. Every universe is in danger, and we've got to save them. We don't have any idea what's causing it, so far, but we do know that we need all the help we can get."

"I'll help you," said Luke from the doorway, where he had evidently just appeared. "Mum would've."

"Thank you, Luke."

"So will I," Sky piped up.

"And me," Clyde added, though his arms were folded.

"I'm sorry," said Rani quickly. "It's just – you know – Sarah-Jane just died … of course I'll help."

The Doctor smiled at her. She smiled weakly back.

They drank their tea, made a significant dent in the biscuit supply, and returned to the TARDIS, with K-9 at Luke's heels.

"It's changed," said Luke in surprise, as they entered the TARDIS.

"Wow!" said Sky softly. "It's beautiful." She spun around a couple of times, eyes shining as she took in her surroundings. "Hello," she smiled at the group gathered on the raised surface that was the console room. "I'm Sky Smith. Who are you?"

"Hello Sky," said Lyra, smiling back. "I'm Lyra Silvertongue, this is my dæmon –"

"What?" Clyde asked.

"Dæmon," Lyra repeated. "It's my soul, in animal form. He's part of me. His name is Pantalaimon. This is Will Parry, and his dæmon, Kirjava, Dr Mary Malone, her son Jake, Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, his sister Ginny and Harry Potter."

"I'm Luke Smith; Sky's my sister. These are my friends, Clyde Langer and Rani Chandra. This is K-9."

"Pleased to meet you," Lyra smiled graciously.

"What do we do now?"

"I don't know," the Doctor sighed, stepping slowly up the steps and glancing at the scanner. He set the TARDIS into flight.

"Maybe we should call it a night," Rose suggested.

"Good idea," said Amy.

"I'm actually tired," the Doctor muttered, sounding surprised.

Even Luke, Sky, Clyde and Rani agreed, though they had just left Bannerman Road in daylight. So they set off in search of bedrooms, which, the Doctor assured them, the TARDIS would provide for them. And, sure enough, Jenny turned the handle of a door and found herself in a smallish bedroom, bathed with the orange glow of the TARDIS, with one bed, a wardrobe, a door that possibly led to an en suite, and even a pair of pyjamas that looked as though they would fit her laid on the bed, and slippers on the plush carpeted floor. Bidding the others goodnight, Jenny stepped into the room, closing the door.

She crossed the room, testing the door. It was unlocked, and, as she had suspected, led to an en suite, equipped with a toilet, sink, and bathtub equipped with a shower head. Yet another door led out of the bathroom, but to where, Jenny did not know. There was even a supply of towels, shower gel, shampoo, a hairbrush, toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. She laughed softly to herself.

"Thank you, old girl," she murmured, pulling her hair down from its ponytail and brushing it through, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. The TARDIS practically purred, making her laugh again. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and returned to the bedroom. She changed into the pyjamas, which did fit her, and climbed into the surprisingly warm bed, promptly falling asleep.

* * *

><p>When she awoke, Jenny found everything the way it had been. There was no sense of day or night on the TARDIS, only the constant orange glow. She sat up against her pillows, surveying her surroundings again. Nothing had changed except that a dressing gown hung on the wardrobe door. She slid out of bed, into the fluffy slippers and then into the dressing gown. She then decided to explore her surroundings; taking advantage of the fact that no one could know she was awake yet.<p>

She went into the en suite off her bedroom, deciding to find out where the door she'd seen last night led to. It was another bedroom, very similar to her own, but perhaps slightly smaller, and the orange glow was, for some reason, dimmer. It seemed, at first glance, to be deserted, but Jenny could make out a shape curled up on the bed, over the duvet and still fully clothed. She recognised the light-brown hair. It was Sky, curled like a kitten on the bed.

She backed out of the room quietly, so not to wake the younger girl, and locked the door. Evidently, they had to share the bathroom. She showered, brushed her teeth, unlocked the door again, and brushed her wet hair out, deciding to let it hang free over her shoulders. She returned to her bedroom, wrapped in her dressing gown. She opened the wardrobe door, and was surprised to find that there were very few clothes in it; most of it was taken over by steps, which led down, with clothes hanging on either side.

"Bigger on the inside," she laughed. "Of course."

She ventured, slightly apprehensively, down the staircase, finding herself in a large room with enough clothes to cater for anyone, no matter who they were. She noted that her staircase was not the only one; countless others twisted upward, to other wardrobes. One grand spiral staircase in the middle of the massive wardrobe led upwards to somewhere she couldn't see.

She quickly located the section of clothes that would fit her, and picked out something to wear, returning to her bedroom to change, but walking back down the stairs, this time closing the doors of her wardrobe behind her, curious as to where the spiral staircase led.

It transpired that it led to a corridor, and then to the console room, which was, surprisingly, deserted. She sat down on one of the console seats-turned-sofas, and waited. What it was she was waiting for, she had no idea, but she soon found out.

The scanner screen, which had been black, suddenly began to crackle with electricity, looking like an un-tuned television. She stood up, glancing at the controls, unsure what to do.

The voice that rang out was as clear as though the speaker were standing beside her, though the screen continued to show nothing of any use. She did not recognise the voice, though it was male, and sounded slightly crazed, she knew that much.

"Hello, young time lord."

"Who are you?" she asked, panicked, backing up a step and colliding with what seemed to be the sofa. She sank onto it. "How do you know what I am?"

"I am the Master, and I didn't know you were clumsy."

"How can you see me?" she asked, glancing wildly around.

"I've been watching your father for a while now. He thinks I'm dead, how wrong he is. I've been watching him pick up his little strays, who he thinks will help him defeat me and my friends."

"It was you," she said, eyes narrowing. "Why?"

"Because, my dear, the world is my oyster, and with all these universes, I've got a full seafood menu. I'm not going to give it up."

With that, the screen went black, the voice disappeared, and Jenny sat there, curled up in a ball, shaking from head to toe, and that was how Amy found her an hour later.

* * *

><p><em>So yeah, our heroes have assembled, it's time to bring some villains into the equation. I'm still throwing Pushing Daisies in there, and if I do include Merlin andor The Hunger Games, they'll meet them on their quest to track down the Master and defeat him._

_Sorry if the saving of Donna isn't plausible, though I'm still not sure how she'll end up_

_Also, I actually quite like the idea of Luke/Jenny. They do have quite a lot in common. *Shrug*_


End file.
